The DOs and DON’Ts of Direct Sales Marketing on Facebook

There has been a lot of hullabaloo lately about a mommy blogger’s post that went viral, about the awfulness of direct sales consultants methods of pushing their products on social media, and basically alienating their friends and families who are sick of seeing “buy my stuff” and “join my team” constantly. And you know what? She’s right! Yes, I’m saying that even though 1 – I’m a direct sales consultant, and 2 – I do most of my business on social media. There are simply correct and incorrect ways to market small business online – including direct sales businesses. People come to Facebook for two primary reasons: to connect socially, and to be entertained. If you are not serving one of those purposes with your personal posts, then you need to rethink your strategy.

DON’T:

Post business content on your personal Facebook profile. It’s against Facebook policy, and frankly, just tacky to push your business content into the newsfeed of people who you are supposed to be friends with socially. Do this constantly, and expect some unfriending.

Add people to private Facebook groups without their consent. People want control over their own newsfeeds, and suddenly you’ve put the burden on them to leave the group they never opted-in to in the first place. I’m now the horrible awful friend that doesn’t support your business because I left a group I never asked to join. Thanks for the guilt.

Tag your friends on business posts on your personal page. It forces the content into the newsfeed of your friend’s friends, and is a sneaky underhanded way to expand your reach. Taking advantage of your friends in this way (especially those with large friend counts) is so underhanded, it’s almost brilliant. But if they are equally brilliant, they’ll tell you to chill out on the “Oh my gosh, this amazingly awesome thing I sell made me think of you!!” [while tagging 15 of your best friends].

Invite 1500 of your closest friends (or those you haven’t spoken to since 8th grade) to your Facebook parties. Cattle call for jewelry, or makeup, or skin care, or nail wraps, or home decor – fun! Um, no. Expect very low responses and engagement.

Friend someone you haven’t talked to in forever, and immediately hit them with your fan page link. Really? You only want me for my “like”? I feel so cheap.

All this stuff is just offputting and unprofessional, makes you look desperate, and is what gives direct sales and small business people a bad rap. It’s creating relationships that are now only based on avoidance. Totally NOT the goal of Facebook and social networking, am I right? So what should you doing instead, you may ask? Read on!

DO:

Setup a Facebook business page. Post your business content there. Invite your peeps to come over and like your page. Send them personal messages inviting them. But by all means, do NOT send an invite to your fan page to someone you haven’t ever had an in-real-life conversation with, or someone you haven’t talked to since 8th grade. Or warm contacts under the coy veil of “we haven’t chatted in so long! Come see what I’m doing now!” It’s kinda transparent. Trust me – no one is going to buy from someone with whom they have zero social relationship.

Genuinely engage with your friends, and build personal reciprocity. Your true friends and family want to support your business. They really do. They just don’t want to be pressured, feel guilty, or constantly exposed to it. Trust me, they know what you sell. You don’t need to remind them every other minute.

Create community and personal engagement on your fan page. Give your fans a reason to come back – and guess what, it probably won’t be because of your product. They are coming back because of YOU. What do you have to offer? Your humor? Your amazing tips? Your stunning sense of fashion? Your brilliant blog posts (ahem)? 🙂 That’s your community.

Invite only a small group to your Facebook parties, and follow-up each with a personal message about the exclusive event for your VIP guests. Would you invite 1500 people to your house? No. You’d invite your closest friends who you know are interested in the topic or product. And you’d make it personal for them. Carry that over to your online parties too.

So what’s the issue here…? Are direct sales brands teaching consultants the wrong ways to do their business online? Or are consultants simply uneducated about social media marketing? Come on, girls… there is a far better way. Take the controls and brush up on your social media skills. You CAN have a successful online business, without your friends avoiding all your personal messages. Trust me, I’ve done it.

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Comments

Thanks Brenda, Excellant Tips!
I do get muddled who /what to send to. So using your own Fbook page is a no no ( for which l feelba bit guilty now).
I dl use my own page for my make up, but unless l pay for it, no – one sees it, so where am l gling wrong?

Hi Dianna! I just started direct sales(a few short weeks ago) and following others advice I’ve done a lot of these things! HOWEVER, I do have my original ‘PARTY LAUNCH” group that is reserved just for specials, posts and all things about my products. I just went into my group and posted what that page was specifically for and if anyone was NOT interested in seeing this they could leave the group and it was OKAY! I will stop posting things directly to my FB page from now on! 🙂 I don’t think it’s ever too late!

Thank you. I have been told to do so many of the no nos. I am a newer consultant. I am so glad i have read this early on. It can prevent me from making these mistakes again. I cannot count how many times people have told me to ” go through and invite everybody I know” to my online events. ufortunately I get minimal sales through facebook, and truly I can see why. I really appreciate this information!

This is such great information. I wish I would have had it about a month ago. The company I just started with on the biz side is an MLM and the leader in my upline encouraged me to invite as many people to a FB party and messaged me the script to send them. Against my own judgement, and with a lot of hesitation, I did. I never felt good about doing that to my FB friends and it didn’t produce anything for me either.

This is why I lovingly told my aunt to set up a Facebook fan page and even told her I would help her with it since I had experience with them I made one for my writing and I made one for resources. Sadly there are some companies or some divisions that seem to tell them not to do this do its good to get the word out and help. So, I’m glad you made this post as I’ll be sharing this.

Very useful information! I’m planning my first online party and found this article while researching “how to host successful facebook parties.” I’m so glad I found your article before bombarding my friends with information about my business. Thank you for your insight 🙂

I love this article and agree 100%. I do not use my personal Facebook account for my business even though I have more than 500 friends on Facebook I have only invited 25 of those to my business page. There is a lot of information out there about how to use social media to grow your business.